o him by
the kind care of Fanny, who gave him all the time she could possibly spare
from her school duties. Mrs. Carrington found it very convenient to call
upon her, whenever she wished to be absent, and hour after hour the fair
young girl sat by the sick man's bedside, employed either with her needle,
her books or drawing. Mr. Carrington was a fine scholar and gave her much
assistance in her studies.

When he grew too weak to read, she would read to him from the Bible,
stopping occasionally, while he explained some obscure passage, or
endeavored to impress on her mind some solemn truth. Thus were the seeds
of righteousness sown, which afterward sprang up and bore fruit unto
everlasting life.

At last the chilling dews came upon his head, his eye grew dim with the
mists of death, and then he laid his cold, white hand on Fanny's head and
prayed most earnestly that heaven's choicest blessings, both here and
hereafter, might descend upon one who had so kindly smoothed his dark
pathway down to the valley of death. A few words of affectionate farewell
to his wife and he was gone. His crushed, aching heart had ceased to beat
and in a few days the green sod was growing above his early grave.

Fanny begged so earnestly to have him buried by the side of Mr. Wilmot
that Mrs. Carrington finally consented, and the two, who had never seen
each other on earth, now lay peacefully side by side. When the springtime
came, the same fair hands planted flowers over the graves of her brothers,
as she loved to call the two men, each of whom had blessed her with his
dying breath. Thither would she often go with Dr. Lacey, who was each day
learning to love her more and more.

Mrs. Carrington contented herself with having a few hysterical fits,
shedding a few tears, dressing herself in an expensive suit of mourning,
and erecting to the memory of her husband a magnificent monument. When Mr.
Middleton saw the latter, he said, "Why the plague can't Dick have as good
a gravestun as that young lieutenant? He desarves it jest as much"; so out
came his purse, and when Mrs. Carrington went next to visit the costly
marble at her husband's grave, she was chagrined to see by its side a
still more splendid one. But there was no help for it, so she had to
endure it in silence, consoling herself with thinking how becomingly she
would dress and how many conquests she would make, when the term of her
mourning should have expired!